kissed his nephew on each cheek (there were no bloodstains there yet). He must have assumed that his sister in Udurum was sending her eldest to observe the Khyrein piracy problems.
“It has been too long since you visited us, Fangodrel,” Ammon cooed. He stroked the braids of his black beard, the same irritating mannerism his son Andoses had adopted. Ammon’s seven sisters would join them at table, and the two grown sons of his brother Omirus, who was still at sea protecting trade routes from Khyrein reavers. “Why did Andoses not come back with you?” he asked.
Gammir smiled, refusing wine. His thirst was great, but not for the blood of grapes. “Andoses and Tadarus have gone to seek the favor of Uurz,” he said. The name of Tadarus was a sour taste on his tongue. Then he remembered the sweetness of his half-brother’s blood and rediscovered his smile.
“This is good,” said Ammon from his throne of ivory and onyx. “My sister gathers support for a war against these jungle devils.” The banner of the white bull on a sky-blue field hung behind him. Servants bustled in carrying the feasting table. They placed it directly before the Sharrian throne, which sat on ground level with the rest of the chamber. Gammir found it odd that the Sharrian Kings chose not to raise themselves upon a royal dais. Some ancient tradition perhaps. Ammon was all but ruled by the Seven Priests who guided his every decision. Perhaps it was they who kept the Sharrian Kings at ground level.
“Tell me, Uncle,” said Gammir. “Why do you wish to bring war upon Khyrei?”
Ammon’s face grew petulant, his lips pursing. “Have you not heard my son’s words? They are pirates, murderers, and thieves. They ruin trade by sacking our ships, and take our mariners as slaves. They are an unwholesome race who have long resented our prosperity.”
“I have heard they are a great and noble people,” said Gammir. “That they lived at peace with Shar Dni until wronged by the sorcery of Vod. Did he not steal my mother from the Prince of Khyrei? Did he not murder the Khyrein Emperor and his son?”
Ammon laid his head back against the satin lining of his throne. His eyes searched the face of the man he still thought was Fangodrel, perhaps only now realizing that this was not him. The blue jewels hanging from his turban crown trembled as his arms shook with restrained rage.
“You speak ill of your own father?” shouted Ammon. Servants withdrew, and the noble women who were gathering at the table cast their eyes downward at its mahogany surface. Children squealed and ran into adjoining corridors. “You find sympathy for the pale demons of the south? Has my sister never told you the truth of her marriage to Prince Gammir?”
Guards in blue surcoats and gilded mail moved restlessly between the pillars as the King stood up to tower over his nephew. “No! She could never tell you! Gammir was a beast. He tortured her. He kept her as a slave until Vod came. A Princess of the Sharrian House locked in a dank cell like an animal!”
The King had drunk too much wine and was obviously not used to anyone telling him what he did not want to hear. Anyone but the Seven Priests, thought Gammir. Those holy personages were in their great temples conducting the Rites of Twilight. Would he have raged so in their presence? Gammir doubted it. These lies about his true father must come to an end.
“He was her master,” said Gammir in a quiet voice. “Was it not his right to treat her in whatever way he chose? He was a Prince; she was his property.”
King Ammon beat his fist upon the table and silverware jumped among the dishes. His sisters coughed and sipped at their wine, hoping the rest of the food would arrive soon to fill both King and Prince’s mouths. Now the Dukes Dutho and Pyrus, the teenage Sons of Omirus, entered the hall and came to the table. They were dressed in the manner of warriors, though Gammir doubted if they had ever left the palace grounds.
“You are young and ignorant,” said Ammon, returning to the seat of his throne. He grasped his wine goblet with an agitated hand. “There is nothing of Vod in your looks/em›our, t in your manner… and I’ll wager there is none in your veins either.”
The table grew silent. Two servants carried the steaming carcass of a roast pig across the floor, placing it at the center of the board. No one dared say a word. The King gulped his wine and would not look at the nephew he had insulted.
Gammir did then what they least expected him to do. He laughed. Threw back his head and howled. The assembled Princesses, Dukes, and guards turned all eyes upon him. Still no one spoke and still Ammon ignored him.
Finally, grasping his stomach, Gammir let his mirth fade. “You are quite correct, Uncle,” he announced so that all there would hear it. “I am no son of Vod. Gammir the First was my father. Vod stole me from my rightful home and murdered my sire. This was the fruit of a conspiracy hatched before I was born.”
Now King Ammon did turn to face him, his face a purple mask of rage and shock. The torches in their sconces, freshly lit to ward off the growing darkness, dimmed and snuffed themselves. The flames dancing in the twin braziers at either side of the hall fell away to fading embers. A ray of silver-gold moonlight streamed through the skylight at the apex of the throne room, bathing the table in pale gloom. In this gloom, Gammir’s black mail gleamed and sparkled like the midnight sea.
“Your fool of a son is dead,” Gammir told Ammon. “By my own hand.”
He raised that same hand like some white jewel to glimmer in the moonlight. The King’s eyes, and the eyes of all those at the table, watched his writhing fingers. Gammir smiled.
The hand struck like a pallid viper and seized the throat of Ammon. The King’s eyes bulged, his wine spilled across the table, and the ladies of the court screamed. A roar like that of a tiger split the air, and Gammir’s teeth sank into Ammon’s throat. A gout of scarlet spewed across the plates, goblets, and the steaming pig carcass.
The guards rushed forward, crying alarm, but the shadows along the walls rose up to seize them, ripping mail and flesh with phantom claws. Gammir drank deep of the blood gushing from his uncle’s pierced neck vein, his merciless hand holding Ammon still against his own feasting board. The sons of Omirus rushed at him, raising jeweled scimitars. A glance from Gammir froze them in terror, and the shadows rushed forth to enshroud them, lifting them above the marble floor. They slashed futilely at the air with their weapons, bellowing hate and fear.
The seven sisters of Ammon ran, but rising walls of darkness blocked every exit. Terrible things floated out from those walls to gather them up in arms cold as death. The throne room was a vault of echoing screams, splashing blood, and death. Gammir, finished at last with the King’s sharp juices, turned one by one to the other guests. He let the Dwellers in Shadow take the impotent guardsmen and the terrified servants. He heard their bones crunching and the pieces of their torn bodies slapping against the floor as he went from lady to lady… aunt to aunt… sucking at the necks of his mother’s sisters. A wolf among penned sheep would have had no easier a feast.
This royal blood was saccharine, tasting of privilege, ripe fruits, good wine, and glittering ruby. It spilled across the table, the floor, stained the white-gol th
“Cousins…” said Gammir, his lips and chin dripping dark fluid. He stared at them with a predator’s eyes, his tongue flicking like a Serpent’s. The shadows about their bodies lowered them within reach of his teeth. “You need weep no more. The end of your suffering has come. Your father will soon join you.”
He sank his teeth into the neck of Dutho, tearing out the warm juice within, slurping it into his belly. Pyrus wailed beside him, and the legion of shadows swirled and feasted in their own mysterious ways among the mutilated bodies. Dutho, drained to a still whiteness, fell from Gammir’s grasp and lay in a black puddle.
He looked up from the corpse and saw Tadarus standing among the shadows.
“No!” he shouted, pointing with a bloody claw that was his finger. “You cannot be here!”
Tadarus only stared at him, wordlessly accusing him of being the fiend he truly was.
Gammir tore off the purple cloak of Udurum, stained black with the blood of Ammon’s court, and threw it at the ghost. “Take it!” he screeched, and the shadow-things writhed and twitched. They flowed about the ghost of Tadarus like harmless vapor. They could not touch him. He was already dead. Perhaps he was one of them.
Brother, said the wraith. It made no move to take up the cloak. The fabric lay over the corpse of a dead Princess, soaking in the bloody pool beneath her. The shadow-things seethed and snuffled between the pillars. Behind the walls of darkness that barricaded the chamber, Gammir heard the shouts and cries of soldiers and priests.
“What do you want from me?” asked Gammir. “Why torment me? Do my bidding as these other dead things do… or leave me be.”
Why have you called me here to witness this? asked the ghost. It wept ethereal tears. Can you not see what
